Red Light, Green Light: Respecting the guardrails, navigating the traffic, and avoiding the potholes of professional boundaries

Maintaining strong professional boundaries within therapeutic relationships is critical for the emotional well being of both child life professionals and the patients they serve. While students and emerging professionals are repeatedly educated on the need for limit setting with patients, instruction on how to implement these actions is far more scarce. This webinar briefly summarizes the current research on therapeutic boundaries and limit setting, highlighting the evidence supporting the need for these professional competencies. The remainder of the time focuses on exercises that help professionals develop self-awareness and determine appropriate interactions. The webinar also describes activities that can be used by providers in supervisory roles model self-reflection for students and new professionals.

This webinar is derived from a Focus article. 

Participants will be able to: 

1) Identify and summarize current research on the benefits of developing/maintaining professional boundaries within clinical work
2) Implement new strategies in personal practice for assessing patient relationships and efficacy of current boundaries
3) Implement exercises with emerging professionals (Students and new hires) that model reflection in real-world clinical scenarios.